IWI US announced the company is now offering Jericho JGear Pistol Kits featuring the 941 pistols. These kits include both a gun and the shooting accessories.
Guns available are the F9, FS9, PL9 and PSL9 versions of the model 941 handgun. All of the guns are equipped with Meprolight Tru-Dot night sights. These sights use tritium vials that glow without an outside power source so you have a better sight picture when aiming in low light conditions.
In addition to the pistol, each kit contains a variety of products. These include:
polymer paddle holster: This is an open top, OWB carry rig that allows for adjusting the carry angle (aka cant) for best comfort.
polymer magazine holder: Similar in design to the holster, this is an open top double magazine pouch that also allows for an adjustment of the carry angle.
Maglula UpLula: This is a tool that can be used to help load ammunition into the pistol magazine. I’ve never found a lot of use for one of these, but I am someone who has been shooting for many years. A new shooter or someone with weak hands may find this tool very helpful. I know there are a lot of Maglula products sold every year.
cleaning rod and brush: This is pretty straightforward.
lockable plastic case: This may not seem like a big deal, but a lot of guns are shipping in cardboard boxes. If you would like a hard case to store or transport your gun in, IWI US is saving you from making a separate purchase.
The MSRP on these kits is $699 for the polymer framed pistol and $779 for the steel framed gun.
Right now, the kits appear to be only available for guns in 9mm. IWI US offers Jericho pistols in other calibers, but it remains to be seen if it will offer kits for other guns.
What happens when you mix an experienced gun designer, successful firearms distributor, a gun sales expert and noted self-defense instructor? In this case, a new company and pistol. Say hello to the Avidity Arms PD10.
Avidity Arms is a new company born to deliver a handgun designed for the concealed carry, self-defense market. The brainchild of Mike Sodini, Brad Thomas, Rafael DelValle and Rob Pincus, the PD10 started like many great American designs: on a napkin during a conversation. From those initial discussions, the pistol moved from the drawing board to the factory. Now the company is ready to pull back the curtain for a peek at the new pistol.
Pincus was kind enough to talk with me about the gun, and give me some insight into its development. I thank him for providing much of the information in this article.
Quick Note About the Prototype
Photos in this article are of an advanced prototype gun. It has a CNC machined frame instead of the polymer one. So, if you see the finish imperfections, just keep in mind that this is not the end product. It is a working prototype that is having the snot beat out of it to find the imperfections. Additionally, some things on the prototype gun will change in the final pistol. For example, the trigger shown is not the intended final product.
General Design
In basic terms, the PD10 is a polymer-framed 9mm pistol that uses a single stack magazine. The overall gun size is likely to be compared to a Glock 19 or Springfield Armory XD-S 4.0. Yet, with a single stack magazine, the gun can be much thinner than the Glock. And since the gun is designed around the 9mm – not the .45 ACP – it’s possible the gun could be made even thinner than the XD-S.
I’ve often advocated for a single stack version of the Glock 19, so this general design envelope is interesting to me.
The gun is striker-fired and has no external safeties to manipulate. There are internal safeties and a trigger block to ensure the gun does not accidentally discharge if struck or dropped.
For greater insight into the thought process that went into the design of the gun, take a look at this article written by Pincus in 2014. In it, he lays out the fundamental aspects of what the ideal personal defense gun might look like. Frankly, it sounds like he was describing the pistol Avidity Arms is now developing.
Additional Features
The gun will ship with the I.C.E. Claw Emergency Manipulation Sights. Both sights will be replaceable using a S&W sized cut up front and a Glock sized rear. Magazines will have the I.C.E. Claw baseplates installed.
The PD10 will have a loaded chamber indicator similar to what is found on many Ruger pistols. While I generally consider these to be superfluous, they don’t detract from the reliability in any way, so I don’t mind them.
The underside of the gun will have a short accessory rail for the addition of a light or supplemental aiming device.
Reliability and the 9mm
Designed around the 9mm cartridge, the PD10 is purpose built to be reliable in the face of a deadly force encounter. Pincus advised that the gun is in the final stages of tweaking and testing to ensure reliability, and that the gun shows great promise. With his name attached to the project, I have no doubt that he will make sure the gun is a solid performer before the first one ships.
A cornerstone of reliability in a semi-automatic pistol is feeding from the magazine. To ensure consistent feeding, a designer may start the design with the magazine and then build the gun around it. In this case, the PD10 was built around an existing magazine design: the 10-round 1911 9mm magazine.
By building the gun around the 1911 magazines, Avidity Arms ensured they would be working with a proven design. This is important with any caliber, but especially so with the 9×19 cartridge.
The 9mm round has a tapered case instead of a straight walled case. Without getting too deep into the physics, the rounds have a propensity to curve when stacked in a magazine. To see that in real life, lay 10 or so 9mm rounds next to each other on a table and you can see how they start to form a semi-circle.
Tilting of the cartridge in the magazine can cause feeding problems, but these are problems that can be overcome. Starting with an existing magazine design ensures that the company won’t waste time trying to reinvent the wheel.
The gun will ship with the reputable McCormick magazines. The bottom of the frame is scalloped for easier grip on the magazine should it need to be stripped from the gun in a double feed situation.
Pricing and Availability
Pincus advised that the pistol has been under development for about two years, and the first guns should ship later this year. From my observations in the past, 2-3 years is normal for product development in this industry.
Made in the United States, the guns will have an attractive price point: $499. As with many firearms, I would expect the guns to sell for less in the store: maybe around $450.
Update – September 2016
The PD10 is still in development and looks to start shipping in early 2017. Rob Pincus recently released the below video which depicts a pre-production gun built to production specifications:
Pincus is advising the MSRP will be $499, so it sounds like they’ve been able to keep costs in line with projections. All of the previously described features – from the Chip McCormick mags to the AmerigGlo front sight – are all in the final spec gun.
I look forward to shooting one of these in a review once they become available.
Final Update
It appears the PD10 project is dead. Even if it wasn’t, at this point it is largely irrelevant. When the gun was first conceived, there was a hole in the market for a thin pistol that was roughly in the size range of the Glock 19.
Korth announced a new 9mm conversion kit to transform a Smith & Wesson L-frame revolver chambered in .357 Magnum. The conversion allows for the use of 9mm “rimless” cartridges in the revolver without needing a moon clip.
The conversion kit comes with the cylinder assembly and speed loader. To convert the gun, all one has to do is remove the lock screw that holds the cylinder assembly in the gun. Then slide out the old cylinder and replace it with the new. Tighten the screw down and that’s it: you now have a 9mm revolver.
The key to efficiently operating a revolver with rimless cartridges is the extraction of the fired shells. When a round is fired, the case expands and creates a tight fit inside the charge hole. The extractor star on a normal revolver pulls the empty case out and allows it to drop free. With a rimless cartridge such as the 9mm, there is no overhanging rim for the typical extractor to use to yank the spent case from the chamber.
Another problem with the 9mm is that the case is tapered. This means that an unfired round has relatively little contact with the inside of the chamber and can back out during fire. A round that backs out of the cylinder can lock up a revolver. This will prevent the gun from firing until the “jam” is cleared.
Typically, the use of a thin piece of metal – a moon clip – would be used to overcome these problems. A moon clip requires the shooter to snap cartridges into it. Then all of the cartridges are inserted and extracted en masse. This system works well for many shooters, and I found it worked well with the Taurus 905 9mm revolver I previously reviewed. Revolver master Jerry Miculek has used these kinds of guns to win competitions and set world records.
However, a number of companies have tried – with varying success – to create revolvers that will run rimless cartridges without a moon clip. A number of decades ago Smith & Wesson did it with the model 547 built on a K-frame.
In more modern times, Charter Arms has made the Pitbull. The Pitbull is a series of revolvers that are chambered for the 9mm, .40 S&W and .45 ACP. While my experience with the guns have been mixed, some people like them a lot. My main issue with the Pitbull was reliable extraction.
Korth has not listed a MSRP on the conversion kits. If the kits are reliable and reasonably priced, I could see the company selling quite a few of them.
It is true that the 9mm doesn’t offer a lot that the .357 Magnum won’t do, but there are some self defense cartridges that simply are not made in the Magnum caliber. Also there are a number of odd people like me that just like doing weird things – like shooting 9mm from a revolver.
If you’ve ever wanted a blow-back AK-ish pistol chambered in 9mm that took Beretta 92 magazines, Chiappa has the gun for you!
Expected to be shown at the 2016 SHOT Show, the new AK-9 from Chiappa Firearms is a semi-automatic pistol that has the look of an AK-style pistol but is not likely to share much in common with those guns. The guns use a straight blowback action and are fed from Beretta 92 magazines. The gun ships with a pair of 10-round mags.
[Ed. note: Chiappa has a new PDW-style gun that is much more attractive than this pistol. Check out the new CBR-9 pistol.]
Chiappa equipped the pistol with a 6.3″ barrel. Overall, the gun is 14.25″ in length. Mechanical sights are included, though I suspect many people will prefer to add a red dot of some type using the built-in Picatinny rail. The rear sight is fixed, while the front is adjustable.
Speaking of accessory rails, the gun has one underneath the barrel as well as a pair at the 3 and 6 o’clock positions. The underside rail ends with a ramped hand stop. The side rails are high up on the gun and well above the barrel.
The AK-9 pistol appears to use an AK-style magazine release and safety selector. A swivel is attached to the rear of the gun for a sling.
If you are not familiar with Chiappa, they produce a number of reproduction guns. Many people may be familiar with the Rhino revolvers the company introduced a few years ago. Although the Rhino is a nice shooting gun (even in .357 Magnum,) it is very much a niche gun that does not enjoy widespread popularity. Well, besides being one of the guns used in the remake of Total Recall.
The suggested retail price on this gun is $569. Frankly, this gun doesn’t do anything for me. What about you – are you interested in it at all? Sound off in the comment section below. Just try to keep it PG, please.
Diamondback just announced the company’s first full-size pistol, the DB FS Nine. Â The new handgun is a striker-fired gun with a polymer frame. Â This new gun will no doubt be compared to the striker-fired guns already on the market, but it does offer a few interesting features that caught my eye.
